Asphyxiate
by Feral Phoenix
Summary: Let the hate swell your heart until you choke. — Yggdra, Gulcasa.


Asphyxiate

DISCLAIMER: Yggdra Union © Sting

_(all this foolishness about moons and blossoms _– she's the jack of spades)

**I.**

The line of steel bars isn't for his protection or hers, but to lock her in. If it's a barrier between them, then it's about as useful as air. They're more than arm's length apart from each other, but his stare makes her feel like she's naked under its intensity and so she glares back as if the force of her scowl can peel his clothes off, too.

It's not until he leaves that she realizes that her racing heartbeat is not out of fear, but out of adrenaline—hate and excitement and something baser.

**II.**

When the word finally gets out that she's been refusing her food, there's a huge clamor throughout the Imperial Army that leads to various soldiers begging her to eat. In the end it reaches his ears and apparently thinking she's worried about poison, he brings two portions of the same meal and tells her they're eating it together to prove that it's safe.

There are mushrooms in it. So he leaves.

The replacement has strawberries in it, and five minutes into the meal it turns out that he can't eat them. Back to the kitchen he goes.

She pictures him cooking, and recalls the stunned childish look on his face from a while ago and an unwelcome stray thought wanders into her head.

She can't chase it out because no matter how much she hates him, it has no bearing on the plain fact that for a minute, he was actually cute.

**III.**

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"You remind me of a couple people."

Silence.

"If that's the case, then why haven't you tried to do anything to me yet?"

"Because. I'm man enough not to force it with someone that can't fight back."

**IV.**

Battlefield dust is thick in the air.

Her body's bruised all over, but she feels electrified, alive. It's not that she wants to fight, particularly. It's that she wants to fight _him. _To—not "prove her strength". Not even "dominate him".

She just wants badly to fight _him._

Honor and reason have nothing to do with basic chemicals.

**V.**

The hate doesn't curdle and drag her down—it ignites and excites and shakes her awake.

Her eyes flit across the horizon of the battlefield, and when she captures him in her gaze she runs towards him. She swings at him and he ducks and his blade chases her in turn.

She pushes in, pushes close, and their bodies strain, trying to shove one or the other into staggering back. Their faces are maybe a foot apart at most.

Something as giddy as caffeine rushes through her blood and tingles in her fingertips. Hatred is an animal pulsation deep within her body that she can hardly bear.

**VI.**

Lazily, she sucks her middle and index fingers, lying splayed; she rides the air with nothing but her small hot palm for a saddle.

She is still silent. His name is locked fast in her throat, on the alert for any chance to escape.

**VII.**

It's not quite hate anymore; it's something deeper and stronger.

Most likely, it's the same on his part; just seeing each other sends sparks of violence through the air, but there's something like a respect or rivalry as a backbone to it; the beast of a connection has delicate threads of empathy for veins.

Denying the physical attraction would be folly. She doesn't. After all, there's quite a large gap between recklessness and being a fool.

It's passion. A brutal and uncontrollable emotion as deep as love. Almost the mirrored image, the equal opposite of it.

And so that night when the battle itself ends and he collapses against her, she allows her legs to sag under his weight, sending them both to their knees. When his forehead drops against her shoulder, she allows him to rest there, and leans her cheek against his temple. His hair smells like bonfire nights.

He's heavy. Stimulated by his body heat, the hatred in her heart glows; she holds him lightly and smiles.

**VIII.**

They wrestle briefly—he bites, she gets her hands into his hair and pulls—until she manages to pin him.

(She ties him to a bedpost for good measure.)

If this is what going crazy feels like, it was stupid to struggle for her sanity, she decides firmly as she watches his eyes haze and go unseeing.

**IX.**

He uses his teeth when he kisses her, and she tastes iron.

She's not made of glass. Neither is he. The battlefield taught them what each other's limits are, and so this too is a battle fought with a kind of murderous abandon—his hands leave faint marks on her skin, and she imprints the curve of his muscles with teeth and nails.

And yet his fingers suddenly become gentle when he tucks them between her legs—when he follows those soft touches with light breathy kisses.

He draws it out until her knees are quivering and she's senseless with pleasure—then flips her to the mattress and plunders her with a breathtaking brutality that leaves her seeing stars.

**X.**

Her fingers encircle his throat. Stray strands of his hair are caught between them, stitching the lines of his skin and hers.

He stares at her, expressionless, and she looks back down at him, the cold stone of the floor to either side of his waist pressed hard against her shins.

Without trying to speak, he lifts his right hand and brushes the back of his finger against her cheek.

…Then he closes his eyes…, and lets that hand fall.


End file.
